Darkness Falls

Starring: Chaney Kley, Emma Caulfield, Lee Cormie, Grant Piro, Sullivan Stapleton  Written by: Joseph Harris, John Fasano  Directed by: Jonathan Liebesman

The Story:  At first I thought Darkness Falls was just the name of the movie. Guess what...its the name of the town featured in the movie, also. Darkness Falls? What kind of a name is that for a town? I can't imagine a group of settling pioneers sitting around their newly erected town hall deciding on a name and choosing "Darkness Falls". Why not just name the place "Anthrax" or "Bubonic Plague River".

Well, the town of Darkness Falls has a legend. 150 or so years ago a kindly old lady named Mathilda Dickson was loved by all of the children in the town. Whenever one of them lost a baby tooth she would give them a gold coin. I guess Mathilda was rich. Then one day a fire broke out in her home and her face was badly burned. So badly that sunlight hurt her. I don't know much about burn victims....does sunlight actually hurt burned flesh? Anyway, Mathilda took to wearing a porcelain mask over her disfigured face and only going out at night. When a few kids turned up missing the townspeople blamed Mathilda and hung her. Before she died she cursed the town of Darkness Falls. I'm sure the townspeople were a little worried about that when a few days later the missing kids turned up safe and sound. (oops...guess we burned Mathilda for nuthin'....shucks!) Nowadays in the present, the children of Darkness Falls fear the ghost of Mathilda...dubbed the Tooth Fairy. When they lose their last baby tooth she comes for it. And if you see her she has to kill you. The only thing that keeps her away is light. All of this information is just in the prologue to the opening credits!

At the beginning of the movie we meet Kyle Walsh, who just lost his last baby tooth. If you have ever seen this movie, tell me....doesn't this kid look a little too old to losing his last baby tooth? I'm no big fan of child actors, so it pains me to watch the kids playing Kyle and his neighbor/ girlfriend Caitlin. Its not that I don't like kids....(Well, actually, I don't like kids that much) but you don't see a lot of good child actors and its a bit tiresome to watch them. Especially when the only reason we have Caitlin and Kyle in this stupid scene where she climbs in his bedroom window at night to vomit so expositional dialogue. After Caitlin leaves, young Kyle goes to bed but is awakened by the tooth Fairy. He manages to fend her off with his flashlight, and hide in the well lit bathroom. His mother goes to investigate his room and is promptly killed by the vengeful spirit. The cops think 12 year old killed his mom and since he has no living relatives its off to the Junior Looney Bin.

12 years later Kyle lives in another town, but is frightened to death of the Dark. He carries around a bag full of flashlights to defend himself against the Tooth Fairy's return. But he gets a phone call from Caitlin who he hasn't seen or heard from in 12 years. Caitlin's younger brother Michael is having problems sleeping and is terrified of the dark and the boy is convinced that the Tooth Fairy is out to get him, so Caitlin looks up Kyle to see if he has any advice of how he got over his fear. Whoa....Whoa....hold on a minute. The script is taking a lot of liberties here in establishing the plot. Caitlin hasn't seen or heard from Kyle since the night his mother was killed. So how does she have any information about any psychosis he may or may not be suffering from? I suppose she could have heard about it, but its a stretch. Also, I wonder if the script originally had Michael as Caitlin's son. I say this because the kid can't be more than maybe 10 years old. What happened to the parents? That's a big age difference between brother and sister right there. Again, its not outside of possibility, but its stretching it. Anyway, Kyle travels back to Darkness Falls to do...well nothing. He talks to Michael in the hospital for a few minutes and then to Caitlin and another childhood friend Larry. Kyle doesn't want to stray in town, but Larry convinces him to go out for a drink. At a local bar a tough named Ray realizes who Kyle is and picks a fight with him. Kyle doesn't want to fight so he walks outside. Ray follows and attacks him and the two end up rolling down a hill into the woods where in the dark night, the Tooth Fairy grabs Ray and flies off into the trees with him. When the cops find Ray dead they assume that Kyle killed him and lock him up.

You know, if I've learned anything from movies its never get in trouble in a small town. The cops don't even consider that Ray started a fight in the bar and Kyle walked away. Considering Ray's actions the could at least ask Kyle if he killed ray in self defense. And there's some nepotism going on in the Darkness Falls PD. Matt, the deputy is the son of Captain Thomas Henry, the police chief that had Kyle carted away at the beginning of the flick. Larry bails Kyle out of jail with the intention of keeping him away from Caitlin. Even though he's been gone for 12 years Larry tells Kyle that no one in town ever had a chance with her because she always thought about Kyle. Wow, that must be Puppy Love to the Nth degree! You mean that all through high school and probably college Caitlin was still in love with a guy she knew when she was 12? A guy that everyone says killed his own mother and spent the last 12 years in a psycho ward or on anti-psychotic medication!? Kyle, though, wants to see Caitlin and Michael because he knows the Tooth Fairy is after the boy. When Larry refuses to take him to the hospital the Tooth Fairy suddenly attacks the car they're in and Drags Larry off into the night to his grisly death. Kyle escapes her and heads straight for the hospital. The police catch up with him though and take him back to the lockup. But the Tooth Fairy comes for him. A convenient thunderstorm knocks the power out in the police station and the Tooth Fairy swoops in and makes short work of all of Darkness Falls finest except for Matt. Kyle escapes again and returns to the hospital where the Tooth Fairy is now chasing Caitlin and Michael around. This has got to be the emptiest hospital I've ever seen. There doesn't seem to be more than two doctors and two nurses and no patients....except for Michael. And don't worry about the doctors and nurses, because after Kyle arrives and tries to get them all out of the hospital alive the Tooth Fairy picks off the non-starring cast members (The doctor and the nurses) and only gets around to the people she originally wanted to kill after Matt arrives to save them. (Well to be honest the doctor made it out of the hospital with them, but the Tooth Fairy snagged him out of Matt's police car before the others scared her off with flashlights.

The plan is this....the local lighthouse has a gasoline generator that's not effected by the storm. Our heroes decide to go there fire it up and use its super bright light to keep the spirit at bay. And it kind of works. Of course we have to have the parts where the generator doesn't work and they have to fix it and the Tooth fairy attacks, etc. etc. But in the end, they do get the light fired up, just in time for the Tooth Fairy's last stand. Kyle manages to destroy her once and for all by  ripping her porcelain mask off, setting his arm on fire and punching her in the face. Yeah, you heard me. That's what happened. I didn't write the damned thing, don't complain to me.

Darkness Falls didn't really suck suck, as much as it just didn't thrill. The Tooth Fairy wasn't all that frightening and her attacks didn't make a lot of sense. If she's still been coming to get teeth from children it only stands that in the 12 years (and before if you think about it) between the death of Kyle's mother and the present someone would have seen her and survived. Even Kyle asks Matt how many unsolved murder cases of children are on record. Matt obviously knows there are a lot. If the Tooth Fairy only kills people that have seen her, then why did she kill the two nurses? The doctor did see her when she was trying to get to Kyle, Michael and Caitlin, but the nurses didn't. So this evil, vengeful spirit went after the people her own mandate didn't identify as targets first?

I've read online that this movie is compared to They a lot. I don't see them as that similar. Yeah, they both have the monsters that can't stand light thing going on, but that's been used for a lot of monsters, like Count Dracula. But one way you can really enjoy this movie whether you end up liking it or not is this. Get some friends and have a drinking game. Every time Kyle says "Stay in the light!" to someone take a drink. You'll be smashed before the credits roll.

Best Lines:  “I'm having a bad day, Kyle...a dead guy fell on me!"- Larry, after Ray's dead body falls on him.

"Lead by example and go see what that was."- Officer Batten refuses to go see what's in the store room in the dark.

Are you kidding me?

1.) One thing I don't want to see in another movie made after this again: The Boy/ Girl neighbor thing where one of them crawls into the other's window at night. Its been done to death. When young Caitlin crawls into Kyle's room for some exposition I cringed.

2.) What kind of dumbass cops d they have in Darkness Falls? Young Kyle doesn't have a cut or bruise on him after his mother is killed, but Captain Henry remarks that she put up a hell of a fight before she died. So how can they suspect Kyle then? He hasn't been hurt at all. I guess the police department in this town hasn't discovered the science of Forensics yet. They must get sued a lot, too. The police think Kyle killed Ray, and I'll admit that he's a likely suspect things being the way they are. But at least a dozen people saw Ray attack Kyle for no good reason in the Bar. Kyle just got up and left. Ray attacked him outside and no one was around for that. So even if Kyle did kill Ray he could say it was self defense and probably get away with it. Any half decent defense attorney could swing that!...and Kyle went to the bar with Larry...who is a Defense Attorney!

3.) The Doctors say that there's nothing physically wrong with Michael. So why is he in a hospital? He won't sleep? He thinks a monster is after him? He's not psychotic. So why not prescribe some sleeping pills and send him home with Caitlin? He must have some Mongo Health Insurance to afford a hospital stay when a cup of Nyquil or a shot of whiskey would do the trick.

4.) Another reason I'm not a fan of Children actors....Michael has a lisp. A real annoying one. I mean like Elmer Fudd annoying. He says "kewosene" instead of Kerosene. Dammit, I don't even know real children that speak like that!

5.) How can the store room in the police station go completely dark when Matt's flashlight goes out? There's a light source coming from somewhere else casting shadows....you can see it when his flashlight is working. But when it goes out the screen goes completely dark. Stupid. nothing happens anyway, so that was just a boring way to add suspense to the scene. Which wasn't needed.

Nudity and Sex: None

Huh?:

The Terminator started it and it happened again in Jeepers Creepers. I even saw it kind of happen again in 24 Hours in London. I mean the old "Monster/Killer/Cyborg goes into the police station and wipes out all of the cops" syndrome.  We can stop doing that now, please. Lump it in there with the kids crawling in neighbors window thing and throw it away, please. Its not cool anymore.

The doctors say they're putting Michael into a sensory deprivation tank to help him, but if you watch the movie you'll see its a big ass MRI machine. And those things are pretty loud if you've ever been in one, so it won't deprive your senses.

BS! First Kyle goes through the windshield of Larry's car when it hits a tree and is unhurt, and later on Caitlin falls what must be at least fifteen feet and is unhurt. I could buy Caitlin's fall, a bit. But the windshield...no f***ing way.

The Final Judgment: The only good thing I can say about renting this or buying it is you can play the Darkness Falls drinking game. But other than that DF gets only 2 devil heads. If you're just really into movies like this it might be worth your time though. There certainly are worse flicks out there.